Another Specialized rider attacked and went away solo after the descent without reaction. It was at this point I attacked hard and the Indian rider from Quick joined me. Both of us swapped turns and we caught up with the Specialized rider; the three of us rotated well together to increase the gap. About 10 minutes later, we were joined by seven “pro” local riders and the group became ten riders. We rotated reasonably well in the cross-winds but not with efficiency I would see back home in New Zealand. Five minutes later we were joined by yet another group of five riders led across by John Cattrall (English rider). One of the five riders happened to be Wei Kui who would later climb brilliantly and ride his way into the Green Jersey.
There was no real cohesion in the second break of 15 riders. Many riders were being lazy, particularly the ‘pro’ riders; always dropping wheels or missing turns on the front. It was quite a jagged procession around the Fuxian Lake. John, myself, and the Indian were doing most of the work on the front. John in particular was driving the pace hard in order to keep our advantage of the chase groups from behind. It was also particularly frustrating when I would finish a pull on the front and no one is rotating through. Then when I drift down the pace-line, the Chinese riders would open gaps thinking I would jump in and save them from a turn on the front. With 40km remaining, I had a small twinge of cramp so had to back off from riding hard on the front in order to survive the last stage of the race. When the final climb came again, Wei Kui from Specialized accelerated away quickly, leaving me with no choice but to ride tempo up the climb. I was surprised that several riders from the group also got dropped and finished behind me. It was a particularly hard last 20km into block head wind to finish the 181km stage. I finished 12th on the stage and officially 7th overall when you take out the five ‘pros’ that were in the front group. Wei Kui, together with the ‘pros’ caught up with the three young talented riders that had been in the breakaway move all day. The 16 year old Li Wenjie was the last rider to be caught at the 170km mark and he came in 5th out of the six riders that finished in the front group. John Cattrall was also dropped on the upper slopes of the climb, but was able to TT well to limit his losses to be 1min 34 behind Wei Kui. Cattrall who had finished 2nd overall at the Masters Tour of Chiangmai in Thailand, is a proven climber and has a solid chance in tomorrow’s 24km individual time trial. If there is one rider that could upset Wei Kui’s position, it would be the English-man. I’m sitting in 7th overall on GC, over five minutes down on the GC leader so my ambition is to limit my losses so that I can remain in the top 10 for the Colorful Yunnan Gran Fondo.
We have moved further west into Yunnan and staying in Chuxiong now. You can see the difference in the air quality and the dramatic change of scenery as we have left the urban areas of Kunming. Stay tuned for some amazing photos after tomorrow’s stage.
Thank you Daniel and good luck.
SD
